Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference, Wednesday Keynote
I'm going to brain-dump my notes from the BI conference I am attending. They may or may not make sense to you, and if they don't, sorry about that. It's mostly a way for me to retain what I am getting from this conference.
Oh, side note: this isn't like other tech conferences I have been to - since this has a lot of business analysis and management stuff, there are a LOT more women here. I don't say that in a "let's gawk at the women at the tech conference" way (since usually there is maybe 5% at best). I'm sure there is 40% women attending and participating. That's good in their being value in diversity, rather than in any kind of eye-candy way (there is a bit of eye-candy around too, but in a "smart girl" way).
Another side-note - I found it remarkably difficult to create my own schedule of breakouts that I wanted to attend. I didn't do it online, tho I did start once last week, and it wasn't any better. From a user perspective, I would have liked the online experience to present me with a list of sessions in a particular track (which it does), then let me give each of the sessions a ranking - 10 being I gotta go to this, 0 being I will not go, and the numbers in between. Then, when I have seen all the tracks and sessions, I click the OK button and it comes up with a ranked schedule of events, trying to accomodate all my highest rankings, and then helping me through a conflict resolution process where I decide between the sessions that I selected that occur in the same timeslot. I basically did this during the first keynote this morning - putting a check or a star (or two stars) beside each of the session descriptions that I was interested in, then doing the same for the Chalk Talk sessions (which weren't in the main program), then going through the abbreviated schedule in my ID lanyard and checking off the sessions that I had selected for each timeslot (again, adding the chalk talks that I wanted to go to on the small schedule). Then I looked at each timeslot and made choices when I had selected more than one session.
So, the second keynote speaker was Michael Treacy. He talked about value disciplines. Here are my fairly raw notes...
Orgs should build the management discipline to grow. That includes talent management, innovation management, and performance management.
Profit/loss statements don't help much this way - there's usually one line of revenue, and 35 lines of cost.
Good management will beat good strategy everytime. Take a mediocre management team and give them a fantastic strategy, you'll get mediocre results. Take a fantastic team and a mediocre strategy, they'll get better results.
Management often fails because they rely on decision-making processes based on experience and intuition, rather than fact-base judgement (analysis, modelling). Experience and intuition add value to fact-based judgements.
A company possesses a performance discipline when the risks of performance against a particular measure have been largely eliminated, and only hard work remains.
Knowledge comes in two forms: explicit (this is the BI domain), and tacit (known to people in the org, but not explicit - how to factor this?)
Behaviour - structured processes lend themselves to automation. Semi-structured include information analysis tools and control systems.
Improvement - experimentation.. Most orgs fail to exploit innovations across the organization.
Organizational performance is a complex system. Examples of complex systems: genetics, global warming, ecology, "Value Discipline".
complex systems contain many variables, many unobserved, some unobservable.
complex interactions between variables, many unknown.
complex interactions between variables, many unknown.
there is often congruence of variables (co-dependence)
there is often congruence of variables (co-dependence)
purposeful systems constantly adjust and evolve (mutation, selection, adaptation)
purposeful systems constantly adjust and evolve (mutation, selection, adaptation)
Improving and sustaining performance of complex systems - there are multiple pathways tfor success in an evolutionary system,
Improving and sustaining performance of complex systems - there are multiple pathways tfor success in an evolutionary system,
there are no simple rules
there are no simple rules
extraordinarily hard tyo copy success from another organization
extraordinarily hard tyo copy success from another organization
complex systems respond predictably to change in variables only over short distances
complex systems respond predictably to change in variables only over short distances
push on a handful of variables hard enough and the rest of the system will push back to maintain equilibrium
push on a handful of variables hard enough and the rest of the system will push back to maintain equilibrium
the response of complex systems to large change is unpredicable
the response of complex systems to large change is unpredicable
the usual way to improve is this:
the usual way to improve is this:
1. evaluate the As Is
1. evaluate the As Is
2. Define the "To Be"
2. Define the "To Be"
3. Manage the change process
3. Manage the change process
4. Create the new state.
4. Create the new state.
Except that it doesn't usually work - trying to change a complex system with only a few variables, and by the time we are done, the original conditions have changed. and it doesn't incorporate learning along the way, changing our understanding of the end state
Except that it doesn't usually work - trying to change a complex system with only a few variables, and by the time we are done, the original conditions have changed. and it doesn't incorporate learning along the way, changing our understanding of the end state
Progressive evolution of the management system is the interior of a triangle, with these three aspects at the corners:
Learning - continuous, iterative transformation, focus on group and organizational learning, not (just) individual learning. Foster enquiry and make it safe to challenge and take risk. Build feedback looks
Adaptation - focus on flexibility for changing environment. constant reconfigurable operation model for flexibility through partnerships and alliances...<missed some>
Innovation - generating new ideas, picking the good ones (and leaving the bad ones), buildng a frictionless org. Implement innovation as upgrades to the standard operating procedures, globally across the org.
Toyota uses any problems in quality as an opportunity for innovation - a solution to the problem gets put into the standard operating procedure globally. Not only do they learn better, they exploit their learning better
Performance discipline is not about the destination, it's about the journey. It's about the speed of learning, adaptation, innovation, about making parallel changes in broad set of variables.
It depends as much on experimentation as it does on planning and analysis - just try things out!
Achieve great performance gains by compounding lots of little changes (but they do need to compound, not just happen coincidentally).
It's not about measuring current performance, as it is about measuring the pace of change in performance metrics.
Modest, radpi, focused improvements that accelerate learning and results.
Long term goals broken into step by step stretch objectives.
Discipline demands a doctrine as its foundation. Everbody needs to be committed to a common model of what drives the results. Accountability is for performance. It requires people of superior skill in every critical skill.
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End of raw notes.
This guy was good - I think Joel would have enjoyed his presentation and been saying "I told you, I told you" along the way.